tery, we have enough of it. Even as I write, a large tool maker, not a mile from Chemnitz, is imitating machines bought, till quite recently, in Philadelphia. The machine is said to be the best gear cutter in the world. To-day they are being successfully built here. If the manufacturer or inventor in America neglected patent rights here, he has no good cause to complain; but I think his sales in this Empire will be at an end as soon as the manufacturer here can fill orders. I can not too strongly counsel care in patenting inventions. Nor can I help calling attention to the fact that there are 52,000,000 pretty well paid people in the cities and on the farms of this Empire, who live very much as we live. Their dress, food, homes, factories, farm life, etc., are not very unlike that of the seventy-odd millions in the United States. Energetic and enterprising efforts must make markets in Europe for many of our manufactures and products. "Knockdown" furniture for offices and homes must sell, if the right effort is made. I saw a simple oak rocking-chair advertised for 27 marks ($6.42) that would cost with us possibly $2 retail. Wood-working machinery (especially for small shops), gas engines, and the thousand and one tools and contrivances to sell which agents travel all over the United States would certainly sell here, once live agents speaking German or the language of the country in which they travel come to push them. While I have said that the Germans should be met in Asia, Africa, Oceanica, and South America, I would by no means have it understood that I deprecate efforts to establish markets here. I mean that markets here are, as a rule, precarious, while those in other parts of the world may be made permanent.

The German has no hesitation in taking American machines apart for the purposes of imitation. Besides, his patent laws put it out of the power of outsiders to import into the Empire for a very long time. If the thing is patented here, it must be made or manufactured here; if it is not patented, it will be imitated. In either case, unless provided with enormous capital, the American is compelled to give up a large part of his profits.

American shoes have put in an appearance in the shoe-shop windows of every city. I am sure that shoes retailing in the United States for $3 to $5 would sell here at the same, or even better, prices. Among the masses (so called) one can hardly count on longcontinued sales in these lines, for imitations and cheap goods will wipe out competition.

Among the many articles that will certainly sell are office fixtures and furniture. I saw an imitation Shannon register sold yesterday for 420 marks ($100). It stood about 5 or 6 feet high, was a little more than a yard wide, and had about eighteen to twenty-five

drawers or compartments. The price seemed absurd; but the prices of furniture over here are high. Plaques for oak, pitch pine, or other hard-wood flooring should pay; for hardly a house goes up now certainly none of any size or pretensions-that does not put in hard-wood floors in the form of square or oblong "tiles."

Silver and plated ware would sell, in my opinion, if properly pushed; and many other articles of hardware that lighten labor to carpenters, smiths, and mechanics in our country. The most successful sales this consulate ever recorded were made by men who shipped wood-working machines to Hamburg, hired a wagon and interpreter, and went from city to city. They were always able by wire or mail to keep up their supply. Hammers, handsaws, and vises would surely sell if properly advertised and pushed.

The books of United States hotels are burdened with the names of Germans resident or traveling in the United States to sell German goods, while hotel books in all big German cities are burdened with the names of Americans who come here to buy. The Empire sends us manufactured articles worth hundreds of millions of marks; it takes from us the products of our farms, and burdens these with what seem to be farfetched restrictions. While writing this report, as if to justify this last assertion, the following letter was received:

The undersigned party carries on a dairy in Zwickau, together with the sale of Mohr's products. I am obliged, under contract with Mr. A. L. Mohr, Bahrenfeld, to sell his oleomargarine, as well as his meats, which are of American origin and which are inspected at Hamburg by a sworn inspector. After being found faultless, the shipment is sealed and a certificate inclosed. The city of Zwickau passed a resolution, sanctioned by the government of the kingdom of Saxony, that no meats shall be admitted for sale, except it can be proved that the animal was inspected before and after killing and found healthy. The inspection must be done by a German veterinary surgeon, and the animal must be killed in Germany. Not being able to prove this, all my goods have been seized and will be sold at auction in the slaughterhouse as inferior goods. I have protested against the measure, and the affair is now before the district authorities. I have fully informed the firm of A. L. Mohr. They want me to have the matter settled by a lawsuit. Mr. Mohr also writes that, according to the treaty between the United States and Germany, the import of meats is free; further, he advises me to refer the matter to the United States consulate and humbly ask for interference and protection, which I hereby do. Any further information respecting this matter will be gladly given.

Yours truly,

MAX PATZER.

I may add to the above that Chemnitz's leading paper is out this morning in an article again calling attention to American shoes, and urging action on the part of the Empire's manufacturers against the rapidly increasing danger from United States competition. It claims. without pointing out where, that American officials have admitted that "rubbish" (Schundwaare) was sent over and sold in the Cerman

markets; that American manufacturers have been warned against former practices and urged to send only good shoes to this country, since one shipment of "rubbish" is calculated to bring the whole trade of the United States here into bad repute, etc. The article ends with this self-complacent conclusion:

That this warning will help is doubtful; for if American shoemakers send good shoes to Germany, they must ask prices so high that German manufacturers can easily compete, and this the Americans want to avoid. The situation will remain as it was, the United States unloading cheap goods on the German market.

I can only repeat what Consul-General Mason, of Frankfort,* and other consuls have so often said, that a large market, not only in this Empire, but all over Europe awaits intelligent and energetic measures to introduce American shoes. Our $2.50, $3, $4, and $5 shoes are better by far than anything made here at the same price. The only country in which competition will be hard is Austria. There, especially in Vienna, good shoes are made at prices similar to those in the United States. A combination of manufacturers, with a central receiving and delivery office in Hamburg, could easily cover the German and Austrian end of the Continent; another in Antwerp could cover Belgium and Holland. Germany sees American shoes gaining against every effort to keep them out. While I do not believe a bad pair of shoes was ever sent over, I think it wise to urge our manufacturers to send only the very best goods they can give for the money. Every inch won here will be worth miles in other countries. If our agents in South America can say, "We sell to Germany, to England, to every country in Europe," it will be a "card" such as no advertising in journal or circular could ever equal. One of the leading manufacturers of this city, in a letter to me from New York, uses these words:

The progress here (in the United States) is remarkable. It will not be long before American manufacturers will make hosiery equal to, if not better than, our best. Some that I have seen here surpasses my own samples, price for price. They could export to Germany and the Continent to-day, were it possible to get, agents to handle their cheap lines and push them.

All this indicates an industrial activity and growth surpassed by no other country.

CHEMNITZ, September 24, 1898.

J. C MONAGHAN,

Consul.

*See CONSULAR REPORTS NO 211, (April, 1898), p. 490; No. 212 (May, 1898), p. 133; No. 215 (August, 1898), p. 609.

HIGH PRICES AND INCREASED MEAT IMPORTS IN GERMANY.

The great increase in the price of meat that has taken place this year in Germany has produced a powerful agitation against the high duties and numerous restrictions, by which the Government has nearly stopped the importation of live animals and greatly increased the price of meat products.

The increase in the price of meat has been such that there has been a decided decrease in the amount consumed. As an example may be cited the report from the Berlin slaughterhouses, according to which they received 50,491 fewer animals in the year ending March 31, 1898, than in the corresponding previous year. The marked rise in the prices of meat has only taken place since March 31, so that it is probable that there has been a still greater decrease in the supply of fresh meat.

In spite of the high price of meat, the difficulties in importing live stock are so great that the steady decrease in the amount imported has not been checked during the first seven months of the year, as will be seen by the following statistics:

Animals imported into Germany during the past three years.

Year.

Oxen. Cows. Calves. Pigs. Sheep.

1895 1896 1897

1897 1898

Animals imported the first seven months of the years 1897 and 1898.

As a result of the high price of fresh meat, there has been a marked increase in the amount of cured meat imported. This is peculiarly advantageous to the United States, which can export meat products. to Germany far more readily than live stock; and our country gets a large part of this trade.

The total imports of fresh and cured meats into Germany during the first seven months of 1897 and 1898, respectively, are shown

by the following comparative table, the statistics in which are given in metric centners of 220.4 pounds each:

39.555

21,549 18,423 11,436 71,393 7,609 18,598 76,588 48,988 68,810 10,903 159,483 23,241 33,699

The amount of meat imported from the United States during the same period was as follows:

According to official statistics, the wholesale prices of meat on the Frankfort market during the month of September were as follows, per 100 German pounds (110 pounds avoirdupois):

AMERICAN APPLES AND THE GERMAN FRUIT MARKET.

Partly as a result of the mild, open weather of last winter, which left uninjured by frost the larvæ of an unusual number of worms and insects, which have since hatched and inflicted serious damage upon orchards and vineyards, and partly in consequence of the cold, persistent rains which prevailed during the season of blossoming, the apple crop throughout Germany, except in southern Baden and a portion of Wurttemberg, is one of the smallest in quantity and poorest in quality that has been gathered in recent years.

As a consequence, prices, both of fall and winter apples, are unNo. 219 4.